God you two get so easily off topic
The topic was a joke to begin with.
Building up is an interesting idea, it leaves more room for nature, but it still costs organic resources, unless you build everything out of concrete and glass and nothing out of wood.
Still, I would rather people just cut back on the amount of material they have.
This idea doesn’t have to be political necessarily.
Perhaps someone could convince people minimalism is healthier for themselves and their environment than materialism.
If it is to be political, I’d like to find some balance between aristocracy and democracy, authority and liberty, rather than just turn everyone into slaves of the state.
Right, people shouldn’t be able to buy more home than one, or more than 2 or three vehicles per household.
Technologies should be made greener, or we shouldn’t have technologies at all.
Yes, drastic times call for drastic measures, and I can’t think of anything more drastic than our species and life itself facing extinction because of our greed.
Now I disagree with you somewhat on guns, but that is another issue.
I would regulate guns perhaps, but not ban them.
The citizens right to bear arms isn’t a threat to nature or humanity, or if it is, it’s a much smaller one than our collective greed.
I think there needs to be a balance of power between citizens and government, even if overall, the government I envision is probably more authoritarian than existing governments in the west.
My ideas are very nuanced, and don’t fall into typical left/right politics, for example I believe nation states should be broken up into smaller units, and I’m not opposed to all elitism or private property, or those who contribute more and are harder to replace, earning a little more than those who contribute less and are easier to replace.
Inequality is only a problem when it’s gross, and inequitable.
Some of you have worked hard and some of you have not.
Some of you inherited your luxuries, others have attained them not through artistry, creativity or a sense of wanting to contribute, but out of envy and greed.
Hard work isn’t a virtue unless you’re working hard for your needs or the needs of others who will in turn work hard for the needs of others.
It’s actually a mental illness.
Luxuries aren’t a blessing they’re a curse, having a mansion means more to clean and maintain.
People who have a lot, never have enough, they always want a little more, we’re actually doing you a favor.
You can keep a few of your acres, the ones you actually need to survive, and perhaps a few more, and then the rest will be returned to nature.
Hard work just means you’re very efficient at destroying nature and transforming it into stuff you don’t need.
Because of high technology, and to a lesser extent (illegal) immigration (who needs slavery when you have a steady stream of cheap labor flowing into your country, eh?) and emigration of jobs, only 1% of the people has to feed 100% of the people, where as before, 99% of the people had to feed 100%.
Most of the important jobs, like feeding, clothing and sheltering people are taken up by a small sector of the economy.
Therefore, most jobs are superfluous.
Jobs now are just an excuse to pay people a salary, and so the rich can get even richer not sharing their wealth but investing it.
This is why the money supply has to keep increasing, more and more of jobs are being done by machines and computers, frees more and more of the people up to do meaningless things, like cater to the decadent tastes of the rich, clean things that don’t need to be cleaned, fix things that aren’t broken or purposely built to break (planned obsolescence), and so forth, we produce so much crap and waste.
It’s ludicrous, our economy is a nightmare, an absolute disaster.
There’s nothing utopian about what I’m proposing, today we live in a utopia, in a drunken stupor, high on the notion of endless growth in a finite world, where as what I and some others are proposing, sustainability, or a graceful and gradual decline, as opposed to sudden inevitable annihilation of our species which is what we face, is much more in sync and in tune with reality.
We can do one of two things.
First, we could power down our economy, get rid of some of the machines and computers, and give these jobs back to the people, people should be employed doing meaningful things like feeding, clothing and sheltering other people as opposed to manufacturing and distributing things like blow dryers and curling irons and all manner of gadgets and gizmos we could easily do without.
Second, we could keep the machines and computers, but increase peoples salaries, so they don’t have to work as much.
I’m more for the former proposal than the latter, but either one or a combination of the two must be implemented, because our resources are dwindling, our economy is totally unsustainable, the survival of our species and life hangs in the balance.
No life form produces as much excess as ours, we consume hundreds of times more energy per head than other species, it’s absurd.
Channeling it or redirecting it alone is insufficient, but it helps, one way of doing this is to get everybody busy online, moving around harmless bits of information for a salary as opposed to material objects in the real world, but it’s not enough.
The economy and population must decline some now, or a lot later, that’s the choice we face.
No combination of space travel or greener energies alone is sufficient, the more efficient our technology, the more bang for buck, the more we’ll just use it, and space travel is a pipe dream, firstly I’m not even sure we or they’ve been to the Moon, or what they might be hiding from us on Mars, secondly they admit it would take centuries if not millennia to terraform a planet, assuming we could do it, therefore, immigrants to mars would be dependent on resources from earth, and the last thing we need is more dependents.
Such endeavors would cost trillions of trillions of dollars and natural resources we don’t have, oil, gas, uranium and so on are finite, running everything we have on green technologies + thousands of trips to the Moon, Mars and back so the population can keep growing and we can keep our mcmansions is crazy.
Who’s the utopian dreamer here, I, the one proposing we cut back on expenditures and conserve, or the one talking about space travel when such things are in their infancy, at best implausible and at worst impossible?
It’s almost always easier to go back than forward, we lived for thousands of years successfully in a preindustrial economy, I would keep some of our technologies but some of it has to go, a space economy by comparison is an acid trip.
Who said anything about helping the homeless?
Pets and those who’re unfit to take care of themselves are luxuries too, and I don’t think much resources should be spent on them.
Those who can’t or won’t work, who’re totally dependent on others for their needs ought to be exiled, or sterilized, so they can’t infect the rest of humanity.
I live in a two bedroom apartment, it’s not that hard, when I need space, you know what I do, I take a walk.
Most of the world gets by just fine with less than Americans, and I’m not just talking about the 3rd world.
2 3rds of middle class Germans and Italians live in apartments, and the overwhelming majority of Japanese and Chinese people live in even tinier spaces, and their life expectancy is higher than Americans, and they’re probably saner too, and more well adjusted.
The notion that everyone needs a mcmansion or they’ll be miserable is utterly ridiculous and unfounded.
Get out there, go for a bike ride or a hike you lazy bums.
Btw our economy is planned today, you think all this growth happens by accident, politicians, bankers, businessman the media spend trillions of dollars a year directing this growth, mostly upward of course, the government intervenes in our private affairs all the time, what I’m not talking about is really more intervention but different, making things more equitable and sustainable, instead of fattening cats.
We don’t even need to get rid of private property altogether, what we need is the right sorts of regulations.
The issue boils down to one fact and one fact only, resources.
We have limited resources, not infinite resources.
Capitalism is built on/predicated on infinite resources
when the reality is otherwise. We have had wars in the past
and they have had a variety of reasons for wars, territory, religious,
financial, Iraq was all about stealing oil and that is the template
of future war which will be about war of resources.
we will have countries lacking in necessary resources and to
get those resources they will invade and attack countries with
those resources. America has a water problem, quite a bit of America
last year was in a drought. What are we going to do when water becomes
really scarce? How are we going to provide water to all our citizens?
And the answer becomes obvious, Canada. And what about countries in
Africa? who will they invade to gain water? And who will invade other
countries for food and water and minerals and other necessary items to
maintain their lifestyle? Capitalism requires and demands necessary resources
and I suspect capitalist will be able to “persuade” democratic leaders to
create reasons to go to war to get these resources for the capitalist.
War driven for profits, just like bush Jr. did for oil in Iraq…
Kropotkin
About the best thing mentioned is birth control. We need to limit the births worldwide. This can be done.
^ Proof that Trump-ish speak is contagious.
Did you have children?
One and I probably should not have. I advocate licensing and birth control. Although the meds are not always effective, my son is evidence of that. I did not want to pass on genetic issues, sadly I did but, he is strong and far healthier than either of his parents. I wanted to abort, my husband wanted a child.
So your generalized philosophy is that one child per person is reasonable but one bedroom per person is not reasonable.
Did you hurt yourself twisting what I said?
No, as twisting infers intent and I didn’t have such an intent.
I know what will solve this problem - the DnA machine.
Got a problem of homeless?
Got a problem of people having too many beds?
One stop shop solution - the DnA machine.
Turns a smelly homeless person in to a hot beautiful bikini babe at the push of a button.
Viola - No more homeless, no more empty beds.
The United States economy was horrible before Trump ran for office where what you said makes no sense.
I am a non-voting anarchist also.
Yeah, we just need a government in charge to limit the number of births couples can have after sex. Your authoritarianism is showing.
That I would like to see…
Good luck trying to convince people of anything especially when insatiable-desire is in the way. It’s just not going to work with any large success.
Effectively under any kind of government we’re all captives of the state.